Scout movement in Romania

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The first scout groups in Romania were founded in 1912. The movement had 100,000 members between the world wars. Today it has about 7,000 members in over 70 local chapters across the country. There are several associations with different focuses.

Organizations

The scouting movement in Romania currently includes the following organizations:

The old scouts have joined forces in the Asociația Traditională Cercetașii României , which is a member of the International Scout and Guide Fellowship .

History of the Romanian Scout Movement

In 1912 Ilie Gherghel, teacher at the "Dimitrie Cantemir" high school in the capital Bucharest, organized the first scout excursions in the vicinity of Bucharest. In the following year groups of pupils from the grammar school "Gheorghe Lazar" in Bucharest formed the first scout groups under the leadership of the Dimãncescu brothers. Word of her activities got around in other schools as well.

The scout activities were confirmed by the Romanian parliament in 1914/15 and the Romanian scout association Asociația Cercetașii României was founded by law . The scouts provided logistical support to the Romanian units during the First World War (as paramedics, detectors, radio operators, etc.). Many were killed in action, such as General Dragalina and Ms. Ecaterina Teodoroiu, who are very well known in Romania to this day.

The Banat student Karl Becker founded in 1925 with students of the secondary school in Timisoara the first Romanian-German scout group modeled after the German Federal Scouts . Soon afterwards, scout groups emerged in many German-speaking schools in the Catholic Banat and from 1928 also in Protestant Transylvania. There were numerous contacts to the local groups of the numerically more significant south-east German wandering bird and to imperial German scout and wandering bird groups . There is even evidence of a joint trip with scouts from South West Africa through the Banat mountains . The Romanian-German scouts also took part in the national scout meetings in Sibiu and Kronstadt .

On June 16, 1925, in the presence of King Carol II in Tecuci, a boy scout memorial was unveiled, which was to commemorate the boy scouts who died in the First World War. Between the world wars there were about 100,000 Boy Scouts. They attended the World Scout Meetings and organized large national Scout Meetings:

In 1935, under political pressure, the Romanian-German scout groups were dissolved. Some joined the Südostdeutscher Wandervogel, which was soon brought into line with the German Youth in Romania .

King Carol II dissolved the Romanian scout organization in 1937 under pressure from right-wing groups and instead founded the organization Straja Țării ("Guardian of the Country"). Some scout groups still existed and continued to work illegally until the beginning of the Second World War .

When the communists came to power in 1945, all attempts to revitalize the scouting movement were prevented. In 1950 the scout monument in Tecuci was melted down. The old girl and boy scouts were still active under the leadership of Alexandru Daia and Eugen Dobrogeanu . There were also meetings several times a year, especially on Boy Scout Day in Tecuci. After many unsuccessful submissions, a relief depicting a boy scout was allowed to be attached to the base of the destroyed scout monument after 20 years. The Pioneers (Pionierii) remained the only allowed children's organization in Romania until the Romanian revolution in 1989 and the fall of the communist dictatorship.

From 1990 onwards various scout groups and organizations emerged with different orientations and often with the support of foreign scout organizations and the world scout organizations WOSM and WAGGGS. The national scout organization Organizația Națională Cercetașii României (ONCR) was founded in February 1990 and today has around 5,000 members. The association is a member of the World Scout Organization WOSM. The Asociația Scout Catolică din România is a Catholic scout association and affiliated with the ONCR. She is also a member of the Italian Scout Association Associazione Guide e Scout Cattolici Italiani . In the same year, an old scout organization Asociația Traditională Cercetașii României was founded , which was founded by scouts from the former association Asociația Cercetașii României . The Asociația Ghidelor Girl Scout Association became a WAGGGS member. It later changed its name to Asociația Ghidelor și Ghizilor din România (AGGR) as a co-educational scout association and today has around 1,000 members and around 30% boys. The Cercetașii Creștini Români din Federația Scoutismu-lui European is a Christian scout association that is a member of the Union Internationale des Guides et Scouts d'Europe . It was founded in 1991 and has about 500 members. The Romániái Magyar Cserkészszövetség is the scout association of the Hungarian minority. He is also a member of the Hungarian National Scout Association Magyar Cserkészszövetség . The Carpathian Scout Association was founded in May 1994 and dissolved in June 1996. The Association of Mountain Scouts Asociația Cercetașii Muntilor was founded in 1996 with its headquarters in Oradea. There is also an overseas offshoot of the US Girl Scouts of the USA in the capital Bucharest .

In 1996 the statue of Tecuci was rebuilt. On May 29, 1999, in the presence of a large number of scouts from all over Romania in Tecuci, the "Scout Island" (Insula Cercetașilor) opened as a scout center.

In 2007 , on the initiative of the World Scout Office in Geneva, an international scout meeting took place together with Romanian scouts with scouts from the countries of origin of the Transylvanian Saxons (France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany).

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